Manhattan Apartment Rents Jump as More New Yorkers Stay Put

Manhattan apartment rents climbed 4.9 percent in the third quarter from a year earlier as tenants opted to renew leases in a tightening market, leaving home-seekers to compete for fewer vacancies. Photographer: Daniel Acker/Bloomberg

Oct. 13 (Bloomberg) -- Manhattan apartment rents climbed
4.9 percent in the third quarter from a year earlier as tenants
opted to renew leases in a tightening market, leaving home-seekers to compete for fewer vacancies.

The median effective rent, or what tenants pay after
landlord-sponsored incentives, increased to $2,970 a month from
$2,831 a year earlier, according to a report by appraiser Miller
Samuel Inc. and broker Prudential Douglas Elliman Real Estate.
New leases declined 6.9 percent to 7,998, and the number of
listings on the market dropped 1.9 percent to 4,605.

Stricter mortgage-lending standards and weak consumer
confidence are limiting demand for home purchases, leading to
increased competition for rentals, according to Jonathan Miller,
president of New York-based Miller Samuel. Tenants are staying
put as rents rise and a limited supply of three- and four-bedroom apartments prevents them from trading up, he said.

“Their options have become more limited,” Miller said in
telephone interview. “You find more tightness as you move up in
size, both in terms of what’s available and the jump in cost.”

Three-bedroom apartments commanded a median $6,295 a month
before concessions, a 20 percent increase, and new rentals of
units that size declined 35 percent to 327, the report showed.

Effective rents for all apartments were the highest since
Miller Samuel and Prudential began tracking the data two years
ago, Miller said. The average price per square foot rose 14
percent from a year earlier to $50.60.

Incentives Decline

Only 8.6 percent of new leases included sweeteners from
landlords such as a free month, compared with 45 percent a year
earlier, Miller Samuel and Prudential said.

The Manhattan sales market was driven by foreign investors
and buyers of smaller apartments in the third quarter, according
to an Oct. 4 report from Miller Samuel and Prudential. While
sales increased 17 percent, the median price of a condo or co-op
was little changed in the period from a year earlier.

Apartment hunters can’t afford to be too choosy as rental
demand jumps, according to Gary Malin, president of New York-based brokerage Citi Habitats, which also released a report
today. They may have to accept a walk-up over an elevator
building, or a studio instead of a one-bedroom unit.

“Unless you have an unlimited budget, you sacrifice
somewhere along the way,” Malin said by phone.

The vacancy rate for Manhattan rentals in the third quarter
declined to 0.93 percent from 0.99 percent a year earlier, Citi
Habitats figures show. Broken down by neighborhood, vacancy
rates ranged from 0.52 percent in the West Village to 1.17
percent for Midtown East.

‘Tight All Over’

“It’s tight all over the place,” Malin said. “People are
still moving to New York whether they have a job or not because
the opportunity to find a job is greater here.”

New York City’s unemployment rate was 8.7 percent in
August, according to the state’s Department of Labor. The U.S.
rate was 9.1 percent in September and has been stuck at 9
percent or higher for all but two months in the last two years.

Nationwide, apartment vacancies dropped to 5.6 percent in
the third quarter, the lowest since the same period in 2006,
according to Reis Inc., a New York-based property-research
company. The average monthly effective rent in the U.S. rose to
$1,004 from $981 a year earlier, the company said.

Shannon Aalai, a broker with Citi Habitats, said
Manhattan’s rental market was “steadily competitive” in the
third quarter and many clients offered $50 to $100 more to land
an apartment.

“This summer, more than any other, I had more people go
over asking price,” Aalai said by phone. “There were some
apartments that I didn’t even think were that great, and they
were getting multiple applications.”

30 Apartments

Erika Wirtz spent a day and a half in August viewing about
30 apartments with her fiance and narrowing the list to their
three favorites. On the following day, they discovered their
first two choices, both on the Upper East Side, were rented.
Their broker alerted the leasing office of the building that was
No. 3 on the list, in the Murray Hill neighborhood, that the
couple were on their way.

“We got on the train on the Upper East Side and took the
subway down to Murray Hill,” said Wirtz, 26, who works in
marketing in Procter & Gamble Co.’s Prestige division. “When we
got there 15 or 20 minutes later, the apartment was gone,”

The couple ended up renting an apartment in the same
building, but on a lower floor.

“I never expected housing inventory to change over as
quickly as it did,” Wirtz said.